Issues with mail fetching too frequently

Hi all: I finally decided to set up email on my IPhone5 today. I am using my gmail account with the native IPhone email app. I went in to the settings and disabled push to both save on battery and avoid having my phone constantly going off. I set my fetch time to 30 minutes, which I figured was a decent interval. No sooner did I put the phone down and it started buzzing at me about email. Even though I set the fetch time to 30 minutes, it's pulling mail every 5-10 minutes. What gives? Thanks in advance.